Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen: from refugee to renowned author

The Daily Trojan featured a story about Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen from University of Southern California:

Tucked away on the fourth floor of Taper Hall, Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen’s office is lined with shelves and shelves of books. For a longtime lover of literature and an English professor who has taught at USC for 20 years, the scene is not out of the ordinary — it is almost expected for a man who has dedicated his career to the written word.

Stacks of loose papers and up-ended novels create a wall between the center of his desk and the packed bookshelf, but Nguyen is not confined to classic literature in his line of work. For him, literature is alive — it is the embodiment of heritage, history, myth and culture and an inevitable product of his identity.

In April 2016, Nguyen’s debut novel The Sympathizer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction — a momentous event that shifted the trajectory of his writing career.